Re­mem­ber them

AS THE NA­TION PRE­PARES TO MARK 100 YEARS SINCE THE AR­MISTICE, WE SHARE THE STO­RIES OF 100 WEST HE­ROES WHO DIED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR,

RE­MEM­BRANCE Day may be a day away, but spe­cial events and com­mem­o­ra­tions have al­ready started, mark­ing the cen­te­nary of the end of the Great War.

Prime Min­is­ter Theresa May vis­ited France yes­ter­day as part of her tour of war ceme­ter­ies with the lead­ers of France and Bel­gium.

Wear­ing a poppy, Mrs May laid a wreath at the graves of John Parr, the first UK sol­dier to be killed in 1914, and the last, Ge­orge El­li­son, in Mons.

She then met Pres­i­dent Macron in Al­bert, a town at the heart of the Somme re­gion, be­fore at­tend­ing a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mony at Thiep­val Me­mo­rial, which bears the names of 72,000 of­fi­cers.

Lo­cally, in Woot­ton Bas­sett, mem­bers of the Armed Forces took part in the open­ing of the Field of Re­mem­brance.

More than 15,000 crosses and com­mem­o­ra­tive mark­ers filled the gar­den at Ly­di­ard Park, which was opened fol­low­ing a per­for­mance by the Mil­i­tary Wives Choir and then a two-minute si­lence.

And in Chel­tenham, a train named af­ter Great West­ern Rail­way work­ers who died in the war rolled into the town’s sta­tion af­ter its un­veil­ing at Lon­don Padding­ton in the morn­ing.

The nine-car­riage train has been named af­ter Flight Sub-Lieu­tenant Harold Day, the only rail­way man to be­come a fly­ing ace, and Lance-Cor­po­ral Allan Leonard Lewis, awarded the Vic­to­ria Cross for brav­ery in Ross­noy, France.

It fea­tures the names of more than 2,500 work­ers and will serve the Great West­ern main­line.

Great West­ern Rail­way deputy man­ag­ing direc­tor, Matthew Golton, said: “The role of the rail­way in help­ing mo­bilise the coun­try and sus­tain the war ef­fort was im­mense.

“Over 25,000 em­ploy­ees of GWR vol­un­teered to serve, a third of the com­pany at the time. It is there­fore fit­ting that as we re­mem­ber all those who took part in this ter­ri­ble con­flict, we hon­our those of the GWR who fell.”

The newly-named GWRtrain at Lon­don’s Padding­ton Sta­tion

Prime Min­is­ter Theresa May and French Pres­i­dent Em­manuelMacron lay a wreath dur­ing a cer­e­mony at Thiep­val Me­mo­rial

Stan­dard bear­ers tak­ing part in theof­fi­cial open­ing of the Field of Re­mem­brance at Royal Woot­ton Bas­sett